Filth

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James McAvoy is gobsmacking in both senses in Filth, playing a
maleficent policeman whose appalling acts give rise to pitch-black dirty
comedy, and then deep unease. McAvoy is superb as the morally and physically
decaying Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson, in this adaptation of Irvine
Welsh’s novel set in Edinburgh.

Robertson is not merely casually racist, homophobic and misogynist, but smart
with it, intent on manipulating and bullying his police colleagues to gain
promotion. At first, it is almost a guilty pleasure watching Robertson romp
through town and his colleagues’ willing wives. He’s a self-hating Scot,
indulging in high irony, heavy